


All Virtue Left Behind

by ellesmer_joe3



Series: At Once The Shame and Glory [3]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Birthday Sex, Dubious Attachments, F/M, Murder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-07
Updated: 2019-01-07
Packaged: 2019-10-06 02:14:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17336753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ellesmer_joe3/pseuds/ellesmer_joe3
Summary: It is Heather’s birthday. Hannibal decides to indulge her. (Or, when Hannibal and Heather murder a family and dress their bodies in the tradition of the early Homo sapiens.)





	All Virtue Left Behind

**Author's Note:**

> Just a lil quickie that's been in my WIP folder for months and months. I decided it would be best for me to finish it before school starts up again. Enjoy (?)
> 
> NOTE: This takes place before Ungodly Hour.

Heather wakes up to the delicious feeling of a cool, calloused hand cupping the flesh between her legs. Humming, she rolls and snuggles closer to the warm body beside her; breathes in his scent of lavender and kitchen herbs coupled with the slight musk of sweat. Purely Hannibal.

He places a quick peck on the tip of her nose before she feels his lips begin to ghost down her neck, her collarbone, her breasts, her stomach – leaving a trail of open-mouthed kisses in their wake until he arrives at the junction of her thighs. He kisses her there, too, and then presses his tongue flat on her entrance and drags it upwards, flicking her nub upon reaching the top. Heather suppresses a shudder.

Hannibal takes his time eating her out, alternating between gentle laps, side-to-side brushes, sucking, and pressing his mouth _hard_ against her cunt. By the time he finally allows her release, she’s so wound up that she comes twice in quick succession. He pulls away slightly, allowing her to buck and writhe as she pleases. His clever fingers keep her from ever coming down, until she keens and grips his wrist. Only then does he stop.

He leaves from between her legs with a parting kiss that makes her whimper, all traces of sleep gone from her mind. He rests his cheek on one breast, gazing up at her with glittering eyes.

“Good morning, darling.”

She cards her fingers through his hair. “Good morning, Hannibal.”

“Happy birthday.”

Heather blinks and props herself up on her elbows; Hannibal retreats to his side of the bed, looking rather like the cat that ate the canary. “How did you know?” she asks.

“I have my ways. Does it matter?”

“I guess not,” Heather replies. With a sigh, she resumes combing his hair back, gently taking care of any knots she encounters along the way. “I’ve just never cared for birthdays much.”

“Even your own?”

She shakes her head.

Hannibal makes a thoughtful noise at the back of his throat and noses the side of her neck, nipping briefly on her earlobe. “Then it will be my utmost pleasure to spoil you on this frabjous day, Miss Kaelin.”

“Mad as a hatter, you are.”

After a bout of sex (in which Hannibal “punishes” Heather for her gross defamation of his person, turning her into a boneless heap in the process), Hannibal pants softly into her ear. “What shall be today’s conquest, my lady?”

“Who,” Heather corrects, smiling contentedly against his skin.

She ponders the question. Her fingers trace circles on Hannibal’s stomach, occasionally straying to rake through the sparse hairs on his chest. Hannibal catches his breath and waits patiently for her verdict.

After a few minutes, Heather raises her head, beaming.

“I have an idea.”

She explains the plan in a hushed voice – like a secret, or a confession. When she is finished, Hannibal kisses the top of her head, smiling wryly.

“Never let it be said that high school education did nothing for you.”

.

They find a suitable family for the night’s excursion: a timid wife, an uncouth son and an equally primitive husband. Hannibal and Heather follow them out of the supermarket and to their house in the suburbs. Heather quickly scribbles the address onto a post-it note and they return to Hannibal’s house. While Hannibal prepares a midday snack, Heather loads the car with everything they might need. By the time she is done, he has set the table and is waiting for her in the living room, scrolling through his emails.

“Wine?” she says.

“Please.”

Heather ventures into the kitchen with Hannibal close behind. She pours for each of them and hands him a glass.

He kisses the inside of her wrist; she pushes him away with a laugh.

“I’m hungry, Hannibal.”

“So am I.”

“For _real_ food!”

With a devilish grin, he takes her hand and leads her into the dining room, pulling her chair out for her. “Greek yogurt parfait,” he says, smiling indulgently. “As light as can be. We wouldn’t want to spoil your appetite for dinner.”

“Thank you, Hannibal. It looks delicious.”

“ _Bon appétit, mon ange_.”

They eat in silence, for the most part. Comfortable silence. Heather knows Hannibal has to catch up on business emails and she’s more than happy to watch him do so, knowing that afterwards, she’ll have him all to herself. At some point, she gets so lost in her own head that she doesn’t realize Hannibal has been watching her for some time.

She blushes upon noticing his avid stare. “Sorry.”

He reaches across the table and pulls her bottom lip out from between her teeth. “I must rid you of that habit. It’s distracting,” he says with a sigh; as close as he is, Heather can’t help but to see the way his eyes have darkened slightly. “What’s on your mind, darling? Was the yogurt that good?”

Heather had been the one to pick it out during one of their forays into the local marketplace, a new brand that Hannibal hadn’t quite trusted but treated her to it nonetheless. She smiles fondly at the memory but sobers just as quickly, lost in his dark gaze.

Ever since they’d shown themselves to one another – who they really were – Hannibal has never failed to show his care and affection for her. He makes her more confident in herself, treats her like a queen, and touches her like no one ever has before. But she knows that he can never love her. There is a part of him that will never be accessible to her, something that he will never want to show her (she knows because he told her so himself).

However, in that moment, he caresses her cheek and holds her in the palm of his hand, and knowing everything, she doesn’t mind that she needs him more than he needs her.

“I’m fucked up,” she exclaims with a laugh, not quite realizing that she’s said it out loud. Hannibal raises an eyebrow, seemingly amused, and Heather leans forward and places a kiss on the corner of his mouth.

“I would do anything for you,” she says.

Hannibal merely stares for a long while, looking into her eyes, her soul.

He nods. “I know.”

.

The teenage son died first, and the mother was next, both of whom departed quickly and quietly. Killing the father was a collaborative effort, considering the size of him. But Hannibal was far too clever for his prey to escape. The man, in his panic and desperation, decided he wasn’t above hitting a woman. Heather crashed into the wall, cradling her cheek, and that was when Hannibal pounced.

He makes sure that the father dies painfully, and slowly.

Once they have harvested a part from each of the three, Hannibal and Heather begin the meticulous task of coloring the bodies in red ochre. They arrange the family on the bed, lying side by side, and litter the sheets and pillows with flowers and sharpened animal bones.

Heather steps away and runs a critical eye over their work.

“It’s your best yet,” says Hannibal, sidling up next to her and placing a kiss on the top of her head. “Have you a title for it?”

“Nothing that isn’t too cliché. I do have a description in mind for it though.” Smiling, Heather turns in his arms and cards her fingers through the hairs on the back of his neck. “ _In death, we are reborn._ ” She pushes his mouth onto hers, a kiss that is all tongue and teeth and fire and adrenaline.

“I couldn’t agree more,” Hannibal growls.

He fucks her right there on the floor, the glow from the streetlamps outside the only light offered to them in that dark, silent room, with no one watching but the speechless dead.

**Author's Note:**

> Painting the dead with ochre and burying them with weapons was something that pre-historic humans actually did. Though I have nothing I can cite from an online source, my World Religions teacher explained it to us as their way of preparing their dead for the afterlife: we first come into this world covered in the blood of our mothers, thus the red ochre, and the stone tools are placed in graves for the dead's utilization when they are reborn.


End file.
